Even though I already suspected the answer. He was just loup-garou . They wouldn’t care.

Not the way I did.

Come find me. Oh, God.

“There’s precious little we can do.” Bruce picked up the ripped envelope. A silent snarl drifted over

his handsome face, his proud nose wrinkling. “The boy might have left school grounds; nobody saw

them take him. It’s been long enough—he could be anywhere by now. Sergej hopes we will be

drawn into a rescue attempt because of your attachment to—”

“Anna,” Christophe said flatly.

Hiro gave him a dark, eloquent glance. “We cannot lay every misfortune at her door.”

“Dru ‘stole’ me; Anna said as much. Why not ‘steal’ the one person Dru trusts absolutely? It has a

certain symmetry, and it’s how the Red Queen operates. She knows no other way. We find Anna;

she will help us find the loup-garou. And answer every question we have about her activities, from

eleven years ago to today.” Christophe’s shoulder lifted, dropped. “Simple.”

“Now hold on,” Ezra piped up.

“We can’t risk—” Hiro, again.

“This is madness,” Alton weighed in.

“There’s no guarantee—” Bruce began, but I tipped my head back and let out a sound halfway between a strangled scream and a growl, and everyone shut up.

“You assholes.” This time the aspect didn’t feel like warm oil. It felt like a crackling cloak of lightning settling over me, and I had to work to pronounce the words the way I wanted them. “I’m out of

here.”

I spun on my heel, my bag bumping my hip, and pushed past Christophe. Or tried to.

“Dru!” He grabbed my arm, and I seriously had to work to throttle the instinct to punch him.

“Don’t. Please.”

“It’s Graves!” Tears blurred my eyes. “He’s got Graves! I have to find him!”

“We will. But you cannot help the loup-garou by running out of here without a clear idea of what to

achieve. Sergej won’t kill him. Not yet.”

“Let go of me!” My voice broke like a little boy’s. “It’s Graves! He’s got Graves!”

It was like a nightmare. Something else kept happening. And I suppose that ever since I’d picked

that piece of fabric off the thorns, this was what I’d been dreading. I just hadn’t said as much to myself.

Because I was turning out to be a coward. I’d rather accuse Graves of leaving me behind, even if it

was inside my own head, than face the fact that I’d gotten him into this. And that he was probably

paying for it right now.

I knew what they did to break werwulfen. I’d learned as much at the other Schola.

Sergej was going to do that to Graves.

Oh, God. I struggled against Christophe’s hands.